in a preceding passage, viz.  I, 1, 20, ’There is that doubt when a man is dead—­some saying he is; others, he is not.  This I should like to know taught by thee; this is the third of my boons.’  If, on the other hand, the passage refers to the individual soul and the highest Self, then it intimates that the highest Self is different from the individual soul; and this also requires to be declared here, on account of the question contained in the passage (I, 2, 14), ’That which thou seest as different from religious duty and its contrary, from effect and cause, from the past and the future, tell me that.’

The doubt to which the passage gives rise having thus been stated, a caviller starts the following objection:  neither of the stated views can be maintained.—­Why?—­On account of the characteristic mark implied in the circumstance that the two are said to drink, i.e. to enjoy, the fruit of their works in the world.  For this can apply to the intelligent individual soul only, not to the non-intelligent buddhi.  And as the dual form ‘drinking’ (pibantau) shows that both are drinking, the view of the two being the buddhi and the individual soul is not tenable.  For the same reason the other opinion also, viz. of the two being the individual soul and the highest Self, cannot be maintained; for drinking (i.e. the fruition of reward) cannot be predicated of the highest Self, on account of the mantra (Mu.  Up.  III, 1, 1), ‘The other looks on without eating.’

These objections, we reply, are without any force.  Just as we see that in phrases such as ’the men with the umbrella (lit. the umbrella-men) are walking,’ the attribute of being furnished with an umbrella which properly speaking belongs to one man only is secondarily ascribed to many, so here two agents are spoken of as drinking because one of them is really drinking.  Or else we may explain the passage by saying that, while the individual soul only drinks, the Lord also is said to drink because he makes the soul drink.  On the other hand, we may also assume that the two are the buddhi and the individual soul, the instrument being figuratively spoken of as the agent—­a figure of speech exemplified by phrases such as ‘the fuel cooks (the food).’  And in a chapter whose topic is the soul no two other beings can well be represented as enjoying rewards.  Hence there is room for the doubt whether the two are the buddhi and the individual soul, or the individual soul and the highest Self.

Here the purvapakshin maintains that the former of the two stated views is the right one, because the two beings are qualified as ’entered into the cave.’  Whether we understand by the cave the body or the heart, in either case the buddhi and the individual soul may be spoken of as ‘entered into the cave.’  Nor would it be appropriate, as long as another interpretation is possible, to assume that a special place is here ascribed to the omnipresent Brahman.  Moreover, the words ’in